bring back HEROs to pvp

Because I witnessed it happen first hand back in 2008 when heroes were the main cause for destroying low end and mid tier GvG. I'm not some random guy who started PvPing in 2011. I began GvGing early 2007. I began leading guilds in mid 2007. I played and guested for a helluva lot of different low end and mid tier guilds throughout 2007-2008. When Hero builds started becoming popular, it was the exact same complaint from nearly everyone I played with.

People absolutely detested facing Hero builds, win or lose. On multiple occasions I would see people get off after a game vs heroes citing how upset they were that they had to play against it. I've had people quit Guild Wars in guilds I was a part of because they were not having fun facing hero guilds every 2 matches. I witnessed them ruin the game for a lot of people first hand.

So unless for some reason the opinion of losing in 5 minutes to a hero team has taken a 180 turn, it is pretty safe to say people will not enjoy it. In fact there is ample evidence to support it now. Whenever people complain about not being able to find a guild for GvG or HA, they always complain that they don't want to play for other low tier people because they lose too much. Do you really think getting more matches so that they can lose more often, and to heroes nonetheless, is something people will find enjoyable? They didn't back when I played. All evidence I've seen leads me to believe they still won't today.

On the other hand, I was playing in a rank 600 guild in 2008, and I was perfectly happy playing against heroes. I don't remember anyone complaining about facing heroes back then, although these days (2011-2012) I constantly hear complaints about resign guilds + no opponents, and I know people who quit the game because of the difficulty in getting games.

What is this ample evidence you're quoting, other than anecdotal evidence (of which I've got lots as well)? What makes your anecdotal evidence more reliable than mine?

Mine proves there are people who hate it and quit because of it. Your evidence only proves that some people look past it. I also looked past it and continued to play. Heroes didn't make me quit playing. They did make a lot of my friends and contacts quit playing though.

Like I stated in my first post, I'm all for them adding heroes back into the game. I just am of the opinion it won't help low end GvG at all, which is basically what our conversation is about since it is in response to Lemming's post about PvE tier guilds (sub 1050 rating as he defines it).

Nothing is in absolutes, we both know this. Some people will like the change and play more because of it, some will detest it and either stop playing or stay out like they currently are. I doubt that heroes will help make low tier GvG lively. It won't hurt it though, because you can't go lower than rock bottom.

I don't know anyone who quit because of playing against heroes, although I know a number of people who quit because they were completely removed. So it goes both ways.

The difference is that the people of your opinion no longer exist in the lower tier, despite the continued absence of heroes. Everyone else who has the opposite opinion or doesn't care either way stands to benefit from this change as it is much less time consuming to put together a party of heroes, and a much more interesting and attractive option compared to henchmen.



We don't. Not without a poll or something.

What do we know?
That it is much easier logistically for low-tier players to use heroes.
That there's a huge population of PvEers who love their heroes.
That there certainly wasn't a population of people waiting in the woodworks to play hero-less GvG like some of us expected.

Right, that's not what I'm talking about. Those are the shitty incentives ANet added after removing the real incentives, and they obviously never worked. Tie world favor to Halls or GvG tournaments, with the mindnumbingly easy pve grind titles giving a short access period (actually short, not "permanent" like now). And then do what you talk about - put in a tutorial. Put in a pugvg system. The barriers of entry for any PvP game will always be higher than PvE, but they can be reduced by things like a game-supported pug system to help people ease into it. The complete lack of such features is why the game died years early.

Except for the ones that died completely and were removed from the game you mean? Aside from those, RA has always been a shitfestival arena, but succeeds specifically because there's a game-supported queue feature that gets relative newbies into play without any effort on their part. JQ/FA have similar entry methods, but they're all awful as far as PvP goes. No teamwork, very little skillful play, no punishment for failure - the epitome of casual, mindless PvP.

GvG isn't as simple as either of those game types. 8v8 with a large map full of NPCs that actually matter and don't respawn, flag carrying and morale boosts, and lots of viable tactics for splitting and winning takes a hell of a lot more effort than RA, and it's part of the reason why it's more engaging.

Adding a solo-queue or auto GvG team finder will probably address the problem of a lack of matches (relatively, considering how dead the game is all around). It's definitely a better option than bringing heroes back with all their ridiculous gimmicks. The only problem would be trying to keep the hordes of puggers from getting curbstomped by any rated guild - HA kept most good teams in the later maps fighting other good teams, and the bads were left fighting mostly bads in underworld. If there's no rating system added, there's nothing stopping good guilds from queueing against the puggers, and if you simply separate them then real GvG will suffer (and at that point, what the hell's the point?).

Aside from the favour suggestion, I agree all round. I don't care either way about the favour idea, I just don't think it would work. You just get a bunch of people sitting around thinking 'someone else will fix it'. I also think there are many ways to reduce the barriers to entry/make the barriers more difficult to maintain, it's not simply a matter of pugging, although obviously that works. As you say, no matter how shitty the format, if it's easy to get into, it works. Exceptions you already noted. TA was removed because of balancing problems, likewise with HB, despite the fact that they were easy to get into and thus had plenty of players. Conversely, as we can see, no matter how good the format, if it's difficult to get new players involved, it's dead.

The ones removed were TA:
- Removed because most people just synced. And when they got to TA, they resigned and went back to RA.
- HB removed because it was plain silly. Gimmick builds and red resigns happened most of the time.


It doesn't matter much if you didn't do that. Most people did. If they brought them back, people would do that again.

"Team Arena was once very popular, but a competitive atmosphere and a degenerate metagame have caused the player base to dwindle a great deal."

"We recognize that the Hero Battles format has reached a state of acute distress. It has always been a niche format with a player base comparable to that of the Ascalon Academy, despite its tournament support. This is largely due to flaws in the core mechanics of the format, compounded by years without skill balances to keep it in check."

They couldn't balance TA, and they didn't balance HB. I was unaware that so few players played HB though, I guess it seemed busier because you only needed 2 players to start a game. Interestingly, that in itself was a barrier.

I want to say, at least they've figured this stuff out in time for gw2. WvWvW, with anonymity to the enemy, a large degree of anonymity to your own side (being just another face in the crowd), a matching system despite the fact that it's entirely pugged, and being extremely easy to enter, will obviously be a raging success. The smaller team sizes for organised matches will help, but it remains to be seen what other barriers will be in place there. If it uses a traditional elo system it will likely only have a couple of years in it, although the ability to enter wvwvw with a team will extend the life of organised pvp somewhat.

This depends only on how long you want to argue about semantics. I don't know anyone that quit because of "playing against heroes". I do however know many people that quit because "GvG isn't fun anymore" and found them bitching the most when playing against hero teams. Heroes caused more people to leave PvP, it didn't happen at once, it happened over years. Sure more people left right at once when they were removed, but it was a much smaller number than the total people leaving because of heroes.

This is the way it was, this isn't an opinion.

Actually, it is.

There's no point arguing about "people leaving because of heroes" or "leaving because GvG ain't fun because of heroes" or "leaving because there were no heroes"

It's impossible for anyone of us to know the opinions of every single person who played gvg during that time. Everything all of you are saying is just mere speculation based on your own experiences. In my experience, heroes didn't affect the amount of fun my guildies and I had. We played for fun so as long as we got matches, we were happy. It's not like hero teams were overpowered or anything. Just split. I would think some of you would know that by now. Infact, heroes probably made pvp a hell of a lot more enjoyable for us since we didn't have to sit around in our guild hall as long as we would have. Does that make me right? No. I didn't know everyone and I doubt any of you did too.

While I don't agree with reintroducing heroes into pvp, I find it silly that anyone can argue that they made gvg/ha better or worse. Unless hard evidence can be provided, all of our arguments will just be our opinions and nothing more.

You seriously think heroes were the reason? Not the appalling skill balance? The age of the game? The lack of attention from Anet?

heroes did make tombs and gvg worse, but you are saying its more enjoyable to you maybe because you have never played with a full team before? if you have you would realize facing same defensive heroway bull shit would bore someone to death, and hero teams were overpowered, there is absolutely no way a hero should have godly multitasking, preprotting and rupting.

skill balancing did contribute a portion to the games decline but certainly not the only or major factor, people still played on for years even when the skill balancing was at its worst.

every game loses players over time so you can't say its the major cause of decline in players, but other reasons did speed up its decline of players aswell.

heros was certainly a factor that sped up the decline in pvp, it provided absolutely 0 gratification of any sort and when you don't get satisfied with the result, either win or loss, you would probably stop playing.

its more to do with the stale format thats been the same for almost 5 years and did absolutely nothing to address it, and playing different formats is what gives people satisfaction.

gvg = objective has been the same forever, kill the guild lord
ha = objectives has been the same since 07

do you really expect people are going to keep playing the same format for another 5 years? people leaving is inevitable, they win it, they do it again, they get bored and they quit.

This is a case where we have to consider HA and GvG separately.

I can definitely sympathize with people in HA who had to deal with Teaseway as it was the most RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing annoying thing to ever to fight against and even good teams lost to it. The way that maps are laid out in HA lend itself to abuse - not just by heroes who could rupt but all annoying gimmicks.

In GvG my experience was completely different. The only time I can recall people complaining about heroes was after EotN when people ran Smiters boon, but that got smiter's booned. Things like the RaO pressure and spirits never really functioned well in GvG, and teaseway absolutely sucked outside of burning isle. Heck, in GvG even a randomway team can beat the best hero gimmicks.

So would I be opposed to putting heroes back in GvG? Certainly not, I don't see how it could hurt. However I would be much more cautious about re-implementing them in HA.

Then, codex arena with heroes is the key:
- noone will complain from HA/GvG
- people will be able to PvP at anytime
- people will be able to bring heroes somewhere in PvP
- ( HB+ TA)^sealed = win !
- people will be able to get their codex title for HoM more easily
- no RR ( consecutive wins) and no syncs/bots

yeh codex will be good for heroes, the title means nothing, and it will be good to deter syncers.

How so? Please enlighten me. Make sure none of them are opinion based because those are just pointless (which is what I'm trying to say).

When I actively played gvg, I almost always played in a full team. Playing against heroes never bored or bothered me and I'm pretty sure it never bothered any of my guildies or the guests that played with us because they would have said something otherwise.

Yes, it may have bothered other people but how can you say that heroes made pvp worse based purely on what people felt? You say that "defensive heroway bull shit would bore someone to death" but forget that it is just one of many possible perceptions towards heroway builds and all I'm saying is that this argument whether heroes made pvp better or worse cannot be based on perception because there are conflictiong views, even in this thread.

If anyone can give a reason why heroes made pvp worse off or better without resorting to just opinionated reasons, I'd like to hear it.

Here is a valid reason, although very poor. Also, almost every hero team would crumble when you split. I wouldn't call that overpowered. Also, I was under the impression that heroes would often interrupt the wrong skills at the wrong time and also waste a lot of energy preprotting someone who was only being auto-attacked. Am I wrong?

Idk what you guys did but my guild could easily handle heroway teams. We would split usually but at one point (and in HA) we would only run the Warriors Endurance dual "ele" spike build and still managed to beat heroway teams in 8v8. I guess that build was kinda strong eh?

For the record, I'm against reintroducing heroes into pvp. Not because they made it worse but because it wouldn't change a thing. Nothing is gonna invigorate pvp other than it going f2p.

And yea, putting heroes into CA would be a very smart move.

there may not be hard evidence suggesting it did make it worse but if they did a poll back in the days im surely every srs pvper would have ticked the option to remove heroes.

its not about the ability to handle hero teams(any 'experienced' group can) easily its actually about facing the same bull shit over and over. If you faced heroway enough usually in the first couple of maps the teams morale wouldn't get a boost infact the attitude usually goes like this "hmm another one, quick guys lets crush them fast and timer one of them to skip to halls, im sick of this shit alrdy."

infact i'd rather get beaten by a real team and have an interesting match then beat heroway all day.

if its not against dual tease mesmers that interrupt every single of your teams skills every 7 seconds(just tease alone, not including p drain and leech) and extend the match to 5-20 minutes then its teams with 6 eles or even hexway with heros which gets old super fast, if you find this fun to play against or even challenging in any aspect then i don't think this game was the right one for you.

i don't get why people find playing against heroes don't bother them.

1. its not challenging
2. its not even a real player filling that role
3. its repetitive and boring (this is a fact, if you don't find it repetitive & boring then you should stick in pve because thats exactly what you get in this game, repetitiveness and boring.)
4. no skill required since you are relying on heroes so much to win

heroways can definitely dominate lesser experienced teams and i am sure lesser experienced/ranked teams will give up much faster then the more experienced/veteran teams as they can actually beat it, which in turn totally kills the lesser experienced/ranked population faster, hence you see a huge disparity between the high ranked kids and the unranked/low rank people crying all the time about discrimination, by doing that they will probably just quit pvp altogether OR start playing heroway themselves which further fuels the bullshit.

talking from a ha perspective as that was where 90% of the population was.
excuse my crap grammar.

I don't have an opinion either way on allowing heroes in 8v8, but the argument 'everyone would rather stare at no opposing party spam than play against heroes' is ridiculous.

I think it's more "everyone would rather play farmville than gw1 matches against heroes." Heroes make PvP that bad, and did for years. That's why they were removed in the first place; a unanimous calling from everyone who did PvP on a regular basis that said "get that AI and all of its gimmickry out of my PvP."

That's what everyone IS doing. The point though, is that it's trying to speak for everyone, when in reality, it only speaks for vocal players (and we all know what percentage of a community that is), and as we can see here, it doesn't even speak for all the vocal players. Aside from that, it also assumes no changes can be made, such as slowing their reaction time with weapon spells, limiting them to one rupt, or any other kind of hacky fix. The entire argument is flawed in multiple ways.

I should have led my last post with 'I didn't have an opinion either way, but the flawed logic in the arguments against is causing one to form'. The only real argument against that I can think of is that it no matter what you do, adding NPCs devalues player skill (to varying degrees) in whatever format you throw them in. Having a finely tuned format that emphasises player skill is pretty damn pointless if no one plays it though.

Auron, posts like that that claim "everyone who did PvP on a regular basis" wanted the removal of heroes evidently exclude me from doing PvP on a regular basis, even though three years ago I played like 9 hours a day or something ... also I know plenty of people who quit because of a lack of opponents. Some friends and I even tried making a guild named "Awaiting a worthy opponent once" as a lament, but the name had already been taken.

This post hit the bull's eye.